Music of the Night
by Femme Bono
Summary: Liz finds out another secret about Reddington, and now it is one she shares with him. Yes, I did. Judge me. :) That being said, this is not your Stephanie Meyer type sparkle.
1. Chapter 1

_Slowly, gently night unfurls its splendor  
Grasp it, sense it, tremulous and tender  
Turn your face away from the garish light of day  
Turn your thoughts away from cold unfeeling light_

Liz rolled over, groaning. The firmness of the mattress under her giving way to her movements, she slowly, dimly realized that she was no longer on the concrete of the warehouse floor. Everything in her body ached. Her blood felt as though it was boiling, and she tried to do a silent assessment of her person to decide if she had been violated or not. She remembered the men crowding around her, leering, touching, jeering and then…blank. Yet it didn't feel as though she had been raped. She rolled her head to the side, opening her eyes in the darkened room. It was nearly pitch black, with heavy draperies over the windows. The sheets were good quality, with the satiny feel of a high thread count. Wherever she was, they were expensive accommodations. And her neck ached like a sore tooth.

Groaning again she reached a tentative hand up to touch the tenderest spot. Wincing at the pain there, she grimaced at the two raised puncture wounds she felt.

"Lizzy, leave it," she started at Red's solemn voice cracking through the quiet like a report through a silent wood.

"Reddington," she breathed in reverence, "you found me in time…"

"No Lizzy," he intoned sadly. "I didn't get there soon enough."

It wasn't his fault she was hurt, she thought. He never failed to blame himself for her foibles, the product of her own impulsiveness.

"I'm so thirsty," she croaked.

There was a brief rustling near the bedside before a scarf-covered lamp clicked on. At the sudden light it almost appeared as though Reddington's eyes flashed amber like an animal in the night.

Dismissing it as a trick of the light on her unaccustomed eyes, Liz reached for the cup she saw on the night table. Red opened his mouth as if to speak when Liz gulped the drink, then grimaced slightly as she choked, gagged. The warm, viscous liquid was not the water she had been expecting. It was blood.


	2. Chapter 2

_Night time sharpens, heightens each sensation  
Darkness wakes and stirs imagination  
Silently the senses abandon their defenses_

When Liz sat up slowly, wincing at the ache in her very bones, Reddington moved to help her. She waved him away, grousing. Swinging her legs over the side of the bed, she rolled her sore neck and gingerly touched the wound again. _Vampire_.

She chuckled darkly, wondering when Red grew such a macabre sense of humor. But the nagging ache in her bones he explained by saying that her body was essentially remaking itself.

"You've been out for three days," he said slowly, measuring her mood and how receptive she was to what he was saying. "Your body underwent most of the change then, while you slept."

She looked at the cup on the bedside table and her stomach roiled. Not with nausea or disgust, but hunger.

"You need to feed, Lizzy," Reddington said, as if he knew her thoughts.

"Why the hell did they do this to me," she replied, her voice shaking. As much as her mind wanted to rebel from the information, her gut, her heart, and the very essence of her being knew. It was incontrovertible. She shook her head as if she could reject it, but Red leaned forward.

"Lizzy," he said, held, until she raised her gaze to meet his. "They wanted you as a slave. They fed you just enough of their blood to start to take you into their thrall. Not enough to make you immortal, but almost enough for you to lose your entire sense of self to their desires and whims. I got there in time to keep them from putting you fully under their control. But Lizzy…if you don't feed further and then change, it _will_ kill you."

"What was in that cup? Is that human's blood? Is that what you do?"

"I have willing donors, a close few who know, but no. I don't kill. Mostly I secure it from blood banks."

He smiled wanly as she glanced away.

"So the blood in the cup?" she pressed again.

"That is for after you feed. It will keep you satiated so you don't submit to the hunger that comes after you change."

"How do I change then? Where do I feed from?" she asked, but she knew already. She had seen his eyes. It was no trick of the light.

"Do you want this, Lizzy?" he asked gravely, as the full ramifications sunk in.

"If I don't, I die," she said haltingly.

"And if you do, sweetheart, you never will," he replied feelingly.

 _Damned if you do_ , she thought.

Slowly she leveled her gaze to his again and nodded almost imperceptibly. "Okay then…so how do I feed?"

Red reached up, touching a stiletto to the base of his throat that she hadn't noticed before and winced as he made the slice. Deep crimson oozed down, pooling around his clavicle and trickled over his shirt, his vest, spattering to the floor. He kneeled in front of her on the bed, tilted his head to the side, and closed his eyes.

She could smell it, and she was unprepared for the thick, liquid pull in her belly at seeing him exposed and vulnerable like this. Liz glanced at his face, a mask of pained resolution, and then leaned down to his neck, his chest hairs tickling her chin as she took a tentative lap. Liz felt and heard him suck in a breath and inhaled herself. She could smell his scent under the tang of the blood, his cologne and his own personal aroma, fine leather and scotch. The taste of him was sweeter than she expected, heady, and she braced her hands around his waist for better leverage, leaning into him further and suckling now. She didn't know if it was the effect of drinking his very essence, but it made her want to lick up his neck, run her fingertips over his shorn hair, and wrap her legs around him…

 _Lizzy_.

She was unsure whether the voice came from inside her head or not. It seemed so far away…

 _Lizzy, sweetheart, that should do_.

But he called to her. There was a ringing in her ears, over the echo of his voice, and over all of it she could hear her own heartbeat, speeding to a staccato. And then it stopped.

 _Here_ , his voice echoed again, _drink this_.

The cool porcelain of the cup touched her lips and she drank deep. Then blacked out completely.


End file.
